Had we not got so used to seeing it being worn by officials, our daura suruwal national dress would look pretty ridiculous. It is a cross between thermal underwear and skirt, and to cover up this embarrassing combination it has a silly western-style jacket and a topi. Our national dress is only slightly less bizarre than the national dress of the Kingdom of Tonga which consists of a reed skirt with a bow tie on a shirtless chest (for men) and a reed skirt with neck scarf on bare chest (for women). Just like a new national anthem, it's about time we had a new national dress.

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The prime minister has taken the lead in modeling a revolutionary national dress which consists of a dark suit, white shirt and red tie with a bhadgaunle topi. It does make him look like one of those rotational monarchs from Malaysia, but the dress is catching on so fast that there is now a severe shortage of topis. Even in the ex-royal army functions this week where the dress code was "Uniform, Lounge Suit or National" Baddie ministers turned up in suits and black topis. At the Shivaratri extravaganza the other day, though, it was the Hindi-speaking, dhoti-wearing Veep who appeared in labeda and jodhpurs.

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Maobuddy ministers are all looking like the clones of Tremendous. Especially Comrade Photocopy who has become his boss' understudy at do's around Mandu since he got promoted to be the deputy leader of the UCPN-M parliamentary party. This has left Comrade Rambabu mighty peeved, especially since the United Revolutionary People's Council that he headed was also disbanded. They gave Laldhoj the chairmanship of the new Governance Coordination Committee but this was an obvious humiliation, and fed rumours that PKD is trying to sideline BRB again like he has done thrice in the past.

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Meanwhile, the renegade Revolutionary Left Wing and Matrika's Mutineers at their war council in Rautahat have decided to set up the Red Guard to safeguard the revolution from Awesome, whom they labelled "modern revisionist and a toady of running dog capitalists and Indian hegemonists." Just to recap, these are the guys who split from the original Maoist party before it united with the Unity Centre and changed its name to Unified Communist Party of Nepal. Efforts are underway to bring disgruntled senior Maoists like Biplop and Kirati also to defect. Kirati just might because he got a dressing down from Terrifico the other day for getting the govt into hot water with just about every decision he has made as the Cultural Revolution Minister.

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This country would have been much more stable if Awful had kept his promise to Girja and made him president. But Chief Secretary Bhoj Raj seems to think it's still not too late to turn back the clock. He told PKD he could convince GPK to take the bait and all the prime minister's headaches would go away. With a nod from his boss, Mr Bhoj goes over to Maharajganj and tells GPK that Awesome wants to make him president. But instead of perking up at the prospect, the Old Fox yells "Nonsense!"

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The UML has found it politically difficult to remove the portraits of all communist netas at once, so it started doing it in installments in Butwal. But holier-than-thou comrades noticed Vladimir Illyich was missing from the stage and created a big hoo-hah. It didn't look like Vladimir Putin's press secretary was bothered, though, because he was on a heli-hunt in Dhorpatan bagging a couple of blue sheep.

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The talk of the Army Day bash at HQ the other day was of sniffer labradors from the Bomb Squad with names like Laldhoj, Girija, Jhallu and Prachanda. Apparently there is now an order right from the Chief to change the names of all dogs named after Maoist comrades. But no such instructions about renaming dogs with names of the leaders of other parties. Comrade Fido will be glad.